deepen these skills, but waiting until post secondary education to start is too late. this means that school systems at all levels from elementary to post secondary must place a far greater emphasis on helping students understand their responsibilities as global citizens. we believe that engaging students in these ways will help our nation meet the president's 2020 college attainment goal with more graduates ready to lead us well into the 21st century. i want to take some time to talk briefly about several programs funded by the department through our office of post secondary education that support foreign learning. we support the teaching and learning of foreign languages through a portfolio of 14 discretionary grant programs under title vi and the fulbright hayes act. 9 of these programs receive $66.6 million to operate domestically and four programs received $7.5 million to operate internationally.

one of the primary roles of the title vi and fulbright hayes programs is meeting the national need for expertise and competence in foreign languages and in foreign area and international studies. the national resource centers supported under title vi represent the department's primary mechanism for developing u.s. language and area expertise on college campuses. the 127 current grantee institution provide instruction, research and development in over 110 less commonly taught languages from all world areas. these programs play an important part in meeting the needs of the nation's federal work force, national security, and economic competitiveness for individuals with foreign language skills. in addition to our title vi national resource centers, the companion program, title vi foreign language and area studies fellowships, or flaas, provides funds to colleges and universities to assist undergraduate and graduate students in foreign language and area studies. in fiscal year 2011, 735 flaas students attended summer language programs overseas.

title vi funding also supports the american overseas research centers. in addition to our title six national resource centers, the companion program title six and area studies fellowships provides funds to colleges and universities to assist undergraduate and graduate students in foreign language and graduate studies. in fiscal year 2011, 735 fla students attended language programs overseas. title vi funding, in 2006 alone, 11 centers worked with 100,000 faculty, scholars, teachers, and students. the federal investment in foreign languages in area studies is critical to developing and sustaining the pipeline of individuals with foreign language and international education skills that are needed to address national security and economic competitiveness needs. these programs also helped to enhance the capacity of educational institutions and agencies at all levels, including k-12 and post secondary, to effectively teach and learn foreign languages. we are committed to continuing to improve and refocus our programs to support the goals of the department's international strategy, to strernten u.s. education, and advance the nation's international priorities. we believe firmly that knowledge and understanding of other cultures and languages are an

increasingly interconnected world, critical to building and sustaining our nation over the coming years. thank you, mr. chairman, for your attention to this important issue and i'll be happy to answer any questions later. >> now ms. greenfield, please proceed with your statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the department of state's efforts and their challenges to build the foreign language skills we need to fulfill our mission and also to deliver on america's foreign policy agenda. i will be presenting a summary of my statement today and ask that the full statement be submitted for the record. the bureau of human resources has the critical responsibility of building and maintaining an effective civilian workforce that can fulfill its role in strengthening the security and prosperity of our nation. as secretary clinton emphasized in the diplomatic and development review, managing threats such as regional conflict, wars, and terrorism depends as much on diplomacy and development as the use of

military force. therefore we have increased the number of positions at difficult, hazardous posts that are vital to our foreign policy agenda. we now have close to 4,000 language designated positions in these posts as well as in other locations. it is challenging to uphold the department's high standard for foreign language capability with the increasing needs that we have faced over the past years. over the past decade, there has been significant shift and growth of positions in the near east, south asia and east asia bureaus require an increase in speakers of languages such as arabic, hindu, and chinese, over our portions have tripled in the bureau of south and central asia affairs where language-designated position requirements have increased tenfold and in the bureau of eastern affairs corresponding with arabic requirements. the foreign service institute has expanded the foreign

language training capacity to meet these demands and raise proficiency of existing foreign language speakers. more targeted recruitment, however, can help address the current challenges. and we're recruiting aggressively for certain priority language proficiency skills to address increasingly complex national security challenges, the department must have robust foreign language capabilities. therefore working in our inner agency with our interagency partners, we strongly encourage young people to study languages earlier in life starting in middle school and high school and continuing through college as my colleague just mentioned. to assist in building the pipeline, the bureau of educational and cultural affairs

is providing language learning opportunities to thousands of american universities, colleges, and high school students, and teachers each year through our exchange program. however, we're very concerned over the past few years to learn that budget constraints because of budget constraints, universities are cutting language programs first before they cut anything. in addition to the department has established incentives to encourage employees to strengthen their language skills, particularly in the so-called hard and super hard languages such as arabic, chinese, russian, japanese, korean, and hindi. underscore the value placed on the department of improving capacity in our most difficult and critical foreign languages. we appreciate the support we've received from you as well as from the congress as a whole under our diplomatic 3.0 hire program to hire training complement that enables more positions to be filled require languages and functional training so we do not continue to assign people to posts that do not have the requisite language skills. while we work aggressively to

recruit and retain the talented staff needed in places like afghanistan and iraq, we must also guarantee that our employees have the foreign language skills necessary to succeed in these challenging environments. but the need is not limited to these handful of countries. we have needs in many parts of the world as i stated earlier. no matter where in the world our employees are serving, our employees must have language skills to gather information, explain and advocate u.s. policies, establish and maintain diplomatic platforms, build and maintain trust, and create relationships. in today's rapidly changing world, the need for these skills has never been more critical. we believe our country's future well being and security depend on them.

mr. chairman, i thank you for the opportunity to address you today and i'd be happy to answer any questions following. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> doctor, please proceed with your statement. >> thank you. chairman, thank you for inviting me to talk to you about such an important topic. this is a priority for the nation and for the department of defense. let me begin by stating that defense secretary panetta has long believed that having a strong language ability is critical to national security. and we're committed to fielding the most capable force that we can deploy. our mission's success is directly connected to our ability to communicate

effectively with local populations and international partners. our current challenge lies in filling language-required positions with personnel that possess the requisite language skills. we've been reducing this deficiency, but we need help. we need our nation schools to develop students with these skills with which we can recruit to meet our needs. studies show that exposure to foreign language and early language learn greatly facilitate language acquisition. therefore bringing in individuals with foreign language skills make it easier to train people to higher levels of proficiency. this in turn would make it easier for us to fill positions with appropriately-qualified individuals. we are working to overcome these challenges through collaborative inner agency strategies to achieve our vision for language, regional, and cultural capabilities. the strategy addresses the importance of identifying our language needs, acquiring and sustaining language skills, enhancing language careers, building partners, and increasing surge capacity. the department is improving the identification of its language needs through standardized capability in the space processes. these processes enable the combatant commanders to articulate their language needs or requirements and provide them to the military services who supply the staff to meet those

needs. we've also sought innovative solutions to enhance the language acquisition and sustainments processes, which include creating a national security workforce pipeline, enhancing language training and sustainment in the total force, increasing partner language capacity. recruiting native and heritage speakers and creating financial incentives. enhancing language careers is essential to sustaining and retaining persons with foreign language skills. we are creating better opportunities for promotion of personnel with critical language skills, creating multiple regionally focused training initiatives, and offering language enhancement opportunities to federal, national security employees. we also recognize the need for partners. the department actively engages through the national security education board. and inner agency governing body that puts emphasis on language and cultural issues. we also use an internal governance body, the steering committee consisting of representatives from 25 key components across the department

to coordinate policies and programs. by experience, we've learned the importance of building a surge capacity. to yield language expertise quickly and at a reasonable cost. the department's national language service core provides a pool of qualified volunteers with high levels of proficiency in english and foreign languages who can serve and be activated as temporary government employees when needed. we have made real progress in improving our foreign language skills, regional expertise, and cultural capabilities to meet 21st century national security challenges. although we have achieved much success, we acknowledge that much work remains. our vision and strategy are designed to build language and

cultural capabiliies so they are available to d.o.d. and other federal agencies when needed. thank you, sir, for the opportunity to share the department's efforts in this area and i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> thank you very much. please proceed with your statement. >> thank you, chairman. i'm proud to sit before you along with my esteemed counterparts. i want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today and in particular for your continued support for the fbi's foreign language program and critical mission. the director of intelligence language services division is responsible for the organization's entire program. they support the fbi's mission by providing quality language services to the fbi and its partners. these services include foreign

language recruitment, hiring, testing, training, translations, interpretations, and other foreign language related functions at the fbi. the language services section provides a centralized command and control structure to ensure our linguist resource base of over 1,400 linguists, an increase of 84% since 9/11, is aligned with priorities set by our operational divisions and intelligence priorities. the fbi relies on foreign language capabilities to quickly and accurately inform operations and enhance analysis. the success of the fbi's mission is clearly dependent upon high-quality language services and the ability to translate and analyze information in a timely manner. the fbi's foreign language program has made great strides in its ability to meet the rising demand of fbi language needs since 9/11. the program has moved forward through increased recruitment, hiring retention, specialized

training, technology, and collaboration. we have also significant lip increased the range and volume of the foreign language training the fbi offers to personnel who need to develop language proficiency to do their jobs. programs include academic emergent training and tailored language courses. we realize we are not able to address our foreign language needs with recruitment, hiring, or training alone. so we also invest in the development of human language technology tools. these tools provide the ability to triage and process large volumes of information while enabling the workforce to enhance productivity. through collaboration, we address our foreign language needs by leveraging the intelligence community and other partners through cross-community resource sharing, joint duty assignments and interagency short-term temporary duty assignment opportunities.

we work with the national security education programs national flagship universities in georgetown's english for heritage speaker programs to funnel people into the contract linguist process. and we reach out to the national language service corps when we have language needs we cannot meet with in-house language resources. as the executive agent for the national virtual translation center, we are able to provide virtual language support. not only for other intelligence community partners, but also for other agencies with foreign language challenges. in closing, i want to thank you for the opportunity to appear here today and provide testimony on the fbi's foreign language program. as you know, more detail has been provided in my written testimony which i respectfully submit for the record. i am also looking forward to answering any questions you may have for me today. >> thank you very much. mr. nordin, please proceed with your statement. >> senator and other folks attending, i am honored to act

as spokesman for the director of national intelligence in today's hearing. i am particularly honored as i know this will be the last hearing of this committee subcommittee chaired by you, sir. we in the foreign language community are indebted to you for your leadership in bringing world language study to a focal point in national dialogue. thank you. foreign language capabilities together with a deep knowledge of the cultures and societal infrastructure of the populus to our security are a paramount importance to the successful performance of the strategic and tactical intelligence missions of today. the complexity of the intelligence community's mission in today's world and the variety of nations and non-state global

actors impacting our national security and national interests make it an absolute imperative that we possess a deep understanding of their cultures, interests, and intentions along with the capability to understand it, communicate in their languages. professional language skills, cultural awareness, intellectual knowledge are core competencies in the collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence information. the shift and real and perceived threats to national security and global stability from 1992 to the present resulted in an increase of number of world languages that were essential to understanding and dealing with those threats. a sharp increase in our needs for skills in the less and least commonly taught languages led to shortfalls in sufficiency and proficiency in the community's

language workforce. in order to meet the needs of the day, the community and our forces engage contractor services. comprised primarily of foreign nationals and civilian immigrants. citizen immigrants. we know that we must build an organic civilian and military language workforce of translaters, interpreters, negotiators and language analysts capable of supporting our steady state needs and vetting the contract capabilities needed during surge. thus the community is now set on a course to significantly increase and improve our organic capabilities. together with rational employment of their foreign language skills and foreign area knowledge.

in order to retain their services, we need to offer these professionals rewarding careers as language specialists. while the technology today and many tomorrows ahead will not replace the skills in processing foreign language. rational integration of key technologies can facilitate the work process and enable higher productivity on the part of the language equipped analyst. the director of national intelligence advocates a significant increase in foreign language capability through expansion of the language capable of workforce while facilitating and expediting their work through integration of state of the art human technology into the collection and analytic processes. together with the defense department leadership, we are exploring the feasibility and potential cost benefits of a professional military -- and intelligence forces. research has shown the advantage

of starting language at an early age as noted before. the program which supports language students and teachers in the elementary and secondary school systems is an essential first step. current investment and language education. by targeting our recruiting and hiring the best and brightest products of programs currently sponsored under ic and other federal funding. and the community will continue to recruit and hire native and heritage speakers. i see that my time is about expired, i would like to continue for another minute, sir. >> yes. >> i would be remiss if i did not cite two activities sponsored by the defense department and the intelligence community that have and will continue to have major impact on national foreign language

capability. first, the defense language institute foreign language center. that continues to produce novice language specialists from graduates. worldwide initial online learning as well as maintenance and enhancement continuing education to all entities. second, the center for the advance study of language, a university affiliated research center at the university of maryland. the center is charged with improving the way we teach, learn, and employ second and multiple languages through research toward enhancing and

optimizing human cognitive skills. the work of the center is contributing to improved aptitude testing, training, and working memory. and improved understanding of the languages of africa and asia. on behalf of the director, i thank you for this opportunity to address this important national issue. and one final statement, sir, as foreign language capability is an inherently government responsibility. the federal government must continue its investment in these precious, valuable tools for the national security. >> thank you very much. mr. nordin. you testified, it seems, that the panel agrees to this that foreign language skills are critically important to our national security. however, the department's only k-12 initiative which is the foreign language assistance program could lose out on funding by competing with other core subjects and funding for the title vi language programs have been significantly reduced

since before. my question to you is how will you support the department's international strategy to develop global competent students in light of these budget cuts? >> well, thank you, mr. chairman, for that question. it is true we have rolled that money into, you know, lump sum funding for k-12 to provide more flexibility and more efficiency in the management of those programs. but we also have -- we're placing more globally an emphasis on the development of global competencies. really the fundamental message that we're transmitting is that in order to achieve the objectives of the president's 2020 goal, we have to have a quality education that includes.

so we are to move beyond the focus of math and english language competency to encompass other subjects, these will also be emphasized and highlighted. and throughout the pipeline. >> the rest of the panel. how will cuts of the departments of education's language and international programs affect your efforts to build and maintain your department's language capabilities? >> thank you very much for that question. and it's very relevant to what we do in the state department in terms of training our officers for language skills. we know that it's more difficult to train people as adults than it is to bring them in with a

foreign language skills early on. and it is our belief that young people who start language training as early as sixth and seventh grade come prepared with the languages when we hire them. and right now, we're spending -- and this figure's a very rough figure, but about $250,000 for each position that we're training people for. if i use a rock as an example where we're signing people for one year, they come in, we have one officer in the position, we have one officer in the first year of training, and one officer in the second year of training. if we brought those people in with the language skills, we would save that amount of money upfront with our officers. again, thank you. >> thank you. doctor?

>> sir, to follow up and to build -- build on the last set of comments, dod has built a lot of partnerships with the support of our national language fellowships with the states and we've made a lot of headway. but this relies on an infrastructure and capacity that was laid down by the department of education. so simply put, it makes a hard problem harder. clearly continued partnerships public/private partnerships, state and federal partnerships will help us get through this. but there's no question that we valued our partnership with the department of education in the past. >> thank you. ms. north? >> as you know, the fbi recruits from our communities out there, and whether we recruit from a heritage community and native community or those people who have learned a language through education. for us, our challenge is to get them through the recruitment and background process. so as the department of

education increases the number of students for us to recruit that are u.s. citizens who have spent their life here in the u.s. as opposed to overseas, that increases the ability of us to get them through their background, their full scope background quicker. and for that reason, we definitely appreciate what the department of education is doing for us in that respect. >> thank you. mr. nordin? >> yes, sir, i think we have a responsibility in our outreach program from all of the federal entities. to go out and help the school boards and the systems to find ways to continue the language education. and i think that's a responsibility that we bear. >> thank you. >> as i mentioned in my statement, i believe coordination is key to addressing our language crisis and strategically target limited

resources. how is the department working with other federal agencies to make sure that its programs are addressing our national security needs? >> mr. chairman, thank you. well, in pursuant to the higher education act, with the 16 cabinet agencies and the federal government to receive recommendations on areas of national need for expertise in foreign languages and what regions. the department's deputy assistant secretary for international foreign language education and the senior staff to ope serve as advisory committee members for the department of defense, national security education program, and the department of state's title

8 program. to assist with the administration of the full programs administered by the department. and the staff of the -- of our international education division works cooperatively with the department of commerce's international trade administration western hemisphere office to plan and participate on seminars intended to give students and faculty at hsis an understanding of funding in international business education. and we're also members of the interagency language round table which is an unfunded interagency organization that was formally established in 1973 for the coordination and sharing of information about language-related activities at the federal level. so that's -- that group is a premiere way for the department agencies to keep abreast of the progress and implementations of techniques and language learning, language use, and other language-related activities. >> thank you. i'd like to ask the rest of the panel also to -- to answer this follow-up question now. will you pas